Bad ball joint replacement?

[Samson]

I have a 2006 non-turbo with a bad drivers side ball joint.
Do replacement ball joints have to be pressed in? Is it easier to just buy
replacement control arms with new ball joints and bushings already installed?
Should tie rod ends be replaced at the same time?
And last, does anyone make a performance ball joint for this model?

Thank you for any help

[Shawnj73]

I am going to go a step further. I am going to replace all under carriage Bushings on my 2001 Cruiser. My Question is this: I hear that it is quite a task to change these bushings; so I would like to know what parts forum members recommend changing on the under carriage while replacing the bushings? I would only like to take it apart once, if possible.

[notnowles]

I dropped both lower control arms on my 2002 (107K) and replaced the bushings with urethane bushings. I also changed the wheel bearings at the same time. (One of them had some wear).

I got the old bushings out by heating them up with a MAP gas torch. Kind of smelly and lots of black smoke!

I didn't have to press in the new bushings. They went in quite easily with the supplied thick and messy lubricant.

I decided to go with the aftermarket urethane bushings because it seems pretty obvious to me that the factory bushing is a problem at the rear of the arm (the vertical bushing). Seems like everyone has replaced them at least once if they have any significant miles on their cars at all.

The wheel bearings are a press job, but just your typical run of the mill set up, nothing exotic or unusually difficult.

The hardest part of the bushing job is getting things apart. I had to go slowly and use lots of penetrating oil and "back and forth" to get some of the bolts out w/o breaking.

The ball joints in my car were in perfect condition. I installed grease fittings in them to renew the lubricant. I may end up removing the fittings unless I can find some new boots for the ball joints that would let excess grease come out of the top. The original boots are not designed to let any grease exit, as the ball joints are designed to be maintenance free.

I have seen replacement ball joints listed on the web that I believe were designed to bolt in with a modification to the arm.

My sense is that the ball joints on the cars are pretty hardy, so just be sure yours really are bad. The vertical bushings on the control arms seem to be the
weak link in the chain.

Hope this helps.

[Samson]

That helped a lot, thank you very much.
Do you know if anyone sells performance control arms?

[cgleibrand]

hey notnowles what did it take to get the lower control arm off as i have to replace the bushing on the rear of the control arm. i already have the car apart to replace the passenger front wheel bearing. thanks in advance.